What’s Right With Our Schools: Notre Dame High School 60 years of Integration

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – These days schools throughout the Tennessee Valley are integrated, but it wasn’t that long ago, when that was not the case. Notre Dame High led the way in Chattanooga back in 1963.

Tyrone Burke graduated from Notre Dame in 1971.

He remembers, “I was a really motivated to come back given that I hadn’t been back to Notre Dame but twice in the 50-something years that I graduated from here. I was really drawn to this opportunity to come back and share the experience.”

Spanish teacher Valerie Silva says, “I think they’re still processing it. I’ve never seen them that quiet at an assembly before. I think it was a good thing.”

Burke adds, “This was really amazing for me, to get the opportunity to come back and to reflect and then share that reflection with the current students about what it was like during integration of the schools.”

Sarah Marquez is a senior at Notre Dame.

She says, “As coach Adams was saying, this is history in front of us, and I think it’s very important to appreciate that, and they can still come and talk to us about how things were when they were here.

Senior Ayana Daniels adds, “Hearing what they had to say and coming to talk to us, it makes us cherish life more. Seeing what they went through and like they kind of paved a way for us here at Notre Dame, being the first integrated class.”

Valerie Silva concludes, “We take for granted that they have this knowledge about the past because to us it’s stuff we all learned in school and grew up seeing and studying about, but the generation today, you can’t take for granted that they know things like this.”